Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Bone Tomahawk Review

Posted: October 22, 2015 in 2015 London Film Festival, Horror, Reviews
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bone tomahawkBone Tomahawk is a horror-western hybrid – think The Searchers meets The Hills Have Eyes. Hey, nothing wrong with that except director/screenwriter S. Craig Zahler opted not to take the best elements of each genre, but rather all the elements of both. The result is a movie with an unconscionable run time of 132 minutes, which is at least 30 minutes too long, given the subject matter and treatment.

Put more bluntly, if the centerpiece of your movie is a lost tribe of murderous cannibal mutant freaks, don’t keep them off the screen for three-quarters of the film. (more…)

Momentum Review

Posted: August 25, 2015 in 2015 Fantasy FilmFest, Action, Reviews, Thriller
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momentumGiven the preposterous casting of Olga Kurylenko as a jewel thief and discredited CIA operative, the largely phoned-in performance of Morgan Freeman (not a comment on the quality of his acting – his sporadic appearances in the film are almost entirely limited to being one half of a phone conversation a continent away from the action), and the start-to-stop silliness of the premise, plot, and denouement, the surprising thing about the new thriller Momentum is that it’s not absolutely awful. In fact, it’s even somewhat entertaining and enjoyable and not entirely in the “OMG, this is so bad, it’s good” way.

How can a film destined to be terrible wind up as not too bad? (more…)

Office (O piseu) review

Posted: August 24, 2015 in 2015 Fantasy FilmFest, Foreign, Reviews, Thriller
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office2The new Korean thriller Office has one of the most dramatic demonstrations of the power of image in recent memory. A single shot, some five minutes into the movie, showing a hand gripping a hammer in the foreground and a domestic scene within an apartment in the background elicits gasps from audiences anticipating and fearing what will happen next before it is even shown. That director Hong Won-Chan can capture such a moment in his first feature film merits kudos, and, even if that represents the dramatic zenith of this uneven effort, his talent is unmistakable.

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Drive-in Dive in: Some Kind of Hate

Posted: August 21, 2015 in 2015 Fantasy FilmFest, Horror, Reviews
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Some Kind of HateDrive-in credo is never, “Don’t get mad, get even.” Drive-in credo is always, “Get mad, then get even.”

Revenge is a dish best served with boiling hot blood in your basic exploitation movie, and Some Kind of Hate gets the recipe exactly right. The special ingredient here is the outsourcing of the violence to a malevolent spirit as high school bullies get their comeuppance from the evil incarnation of a victim who died at the hands of her tormentors.

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H. Review

Posted: August 20, 2015 in 2015 Berlinale, 2015 Fantasy FilmFest, Drama, Reviews, Science Fiction
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HFilm audiences in Berlin have enjoyed two opportunities to see the film H. this year, first at the Berlinale in February and then, more recently, at the Fantasy FilmFest in August. It is a movie that does well with a second viewing as the allusions to the Helen of Troy mythology from the Iliad and The Odyssey can be distracting rather than illuminating the first time around. As the events slowly unfold on screen, filmgoers can feel as if they have wandered into a graduate school literature class without reading the assignment or even having access to the CliffsNotes version. Letting go of these concerns during a subsequent viewing allows audiences to escape a sense of frustration and enjoy the pleasures of understated storytelling within a technically sound framework. Of course, you still need to devote more mental energy than in most films, but here, one feels as if it is worth the effort even if there are elements that must be pushed to the side.

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Drive-In Dive In: Hellions

Posted: August 19, 2015 in 2015 Fantasy FilmFest, Drive In, Horror, Reviews
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Hellions
If Hellions is the third feature on the drive-in line-up this weekend, take the speaker off the window after the second flick, and call it a night. Even with a crisp 80-minute runtime, this would-be scare fare about the Halloween night from Hell is not worth the time or heartburn from snack bar French fries.

The most unsettling aspect of Hellions is its treatment of teen pregnancy. At its worst moments (worst as in truly bad rather than frightening), this otherwise conventional horror story comes off as right-wing, pro-abstinence, anti-abortion political propaganda. If you’re a seventeen-year old girl who screws around with her boyfriend even once, be prepared to get knocked up and then visited by evil children intent on taking possession of the unborn, all in short order and, quite naturally, all on Halloween night. (more…)

Kill Your Friends Review

Posted: August 18, 2015 in 2015 Fantasy FilmFest, Comedy, Reviews, Thriller
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Kill-Your-Friends-Nicholas-HoultKill Your Friends is not nearly as deliciously nasty a film as it should be and not half as clever as it thinks it is. Scripted by John Niven from his own novel, the movie takes a satiric look at the British music industry in the late 1990’s, the supposed heyday of the late, unlamented Britpop movement. Yes, the acting is bravura, the direction appropriately brisk, the dialogue and cinematography respectively knife-edge sharp, but the end result is merely diverting rather than engrossing.

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Big Game Review

Posted: June 19, 2015 in Action, Reviews
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Big GameIf you have an 11-year old boy or, even, better, if you are an 11-year old boy, Big Game might just be your favorite movie of the summer of 2015. If you are an 11-year old Finnish boy, Big Game might be your Citizen Kane.

For everyone else, it is important to realize what Big Game is not before you make the trek to the Cineplex for a showing. It is not plausible, logical, or consistent within its own narrative. It is not a movie that is on par with Escape from New York or Die Hard, although it borrows liberally from both. It is most decidedly not a conventional Samuel L. Jackson movie. (more…)

Jurassic World Review

Posted: June 12, 2015 in Action, Reviews
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Jurassic WorldThe most amazing thing about Jurassic World is that none of its manifest flaws are fatal. Somehow, the movie retains enough magic from the original to be entertaining in spite of the sub-standard dialogue, tired plot, uninspiring special effects, indifferent performances, and recurrent boneheaded decisions by pivotal characters. The success of this film will stand as either a testimony to the enduring strength of 1993’s Jurassic Park or as a contemporary milestone marking the low threshold in place for summer blockbusters.

More likely the latter. (more…)

Drive-In Dive In: Gun Woman

Posted: May 31, 2015 in Action, Drive In, Reviews
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Gun WomanToo much of what passes for drive-in movies these days are arch ironic from the get go, overly self conscious attempts to cook up the heady cinematic concoctions of the late 60’s and early 70’s with modern ingredients reheated in a 21st-century Hollywood microwave. This trend started with Grindhouse, but traces of modern taint can be found even in otherwise stalwart efforts of late including Hobo with a Shotgun and Bring Me The Head of the Machine Gun Woman. The genuine stuff is out there, but it’s rare and easily missed.

That’s what makes Gun Woman special. This 86-minute extreme import from Japan is the real deal, an organic exercise in hardcore drive in. Leave the kids at home with the sitter for this one, or, at the least, make sure they’re asleep in the back seat with a blanket over their heads. Accidental exposure will result in more than a nightmare – we’re talking years of lockdown therapy. Gun Woman is the finest exploitation film since Raze (2013), the absolutely bonkers flick that showed captured women fighting to the death. (more…)

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